Items tagged with (NYSE:TWTR)
Social media provides a lot of value to the world, but a new study suggests that we should start taking it in smaller doses - ideally no more than 30 minutes per day. The experimental study was conducted by Melissa G. Hunt and others at the University of Pennsylvania, and indications so far show that modest use of social media can directly improve our mental well-being. With the help of 143 participants, two groups were created. The first group was limited to 10 minutes of Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat each day. The other group consisted of people who didn't have to change their habits at all. Before the study was kicked off, every participant filled out a "well-being survey" to gauge...
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We have been bookmarking websites with our internet browsers for almost as long as the public internet has been in existence. Twitter, on the other hand, hasn’t made it easy to save favorite tweets, images, and other content until now. Luckily, Twitter has officially rolled out Bookmarks. Bookmarks will allow users to quickly and easily save Tweets for fast access later. Saving stuff for you to peruse later isn’t all Twitter is doing, however, it is also making it easier to share content with a new "share" icon on every Tweet. Twitter wrote, "With our new 'share' icon on every Tweet, you’ll be able to bookmark a Tweet, share via Direct Message, or share off of Twitter any number...
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Much to the delight of some and dismay of others, US President Donald Trump maintains an active presence on Twitter—nary a days goes by that he does not post several tweets, which can range from praising his administration and policies, to blasting the media with accusations of fake news. But for a brief period yesterday evening, the President found himself without access to his favorite social media platform after his account had been deactivated by Twitter. His account vanished from the Twitterverse at around 6:45 PM Thursday. Visitors to his page saw a message stating, "Sorry, that pages doesn't exist!" It was back online before 7:00 PM the same night, and about an hour later Twitter posted...
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The challenge that everyone using Twitter has dealt with at some point is hitting that max character limit. The limit right now is 140 characters, and that can be easy to hit for those that aren't fond of brevity. This means that many end up shortening words to fit in what they need to say or using multiple tweets. That is about to change with Twitter announcing that it is increasing the character limit increase to 280.Twitter's Aliza Rosen says that in many languages like English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French it's very easy to hit the character limit when trying to express meanings and emotions. At the same time, in languages like Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, people rarely hit the character...
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LG has teased only a handful of details about its upcoming V30 handset after unveiling the flagship phone at IFA in Berlin earlier this week. One of the unknowns is the price, or so that was the case initially. According to the fine print of a Twitter contest that LG is promoting, the unlocked version of the V30 has an approximate retail value (AVR) of $749.99 in the United States. As part of the contest, LG is giving away three V30 phones for free. Those who are eligible need only retweet the following Twitter post to enter: We're giving away 3 LG V30s to celebrate the launch of the 3rd V series smartphone! RT for a chance to win. Terms: https://t.co/hmkBsMigrk pic.twitter.com/Mt7ewnAAlr— LG...
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Twitter users are debating whether or not a picture posted by Samsung's Exynos processor division depicts the South Korean electronics maker's forthcoming Galaxy Note 8 handset. If that is indeed the case, then pat Samsung on the back for a clever use of social media. And even if that is not the case, it is good publicity for Samsung and its unreleased phablet handset. The picture shows a Exynos 9 system-on-chip (SoC) sitting on top of an unmarked smartphone. It is intended to promote Samsung's Exynos 8895 silicon, though Twitter users seem more interested in figuring out what handset is in the picture than discussing Samsung's flagship mobile processor. Do what you want. #Exynos will get things...
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Are you ready for some football? Amazon sure is—the online retailer has inked a one-year agreement with the National Football League (NFL) to stream 10 Thursday night games to its Prime subscribers. It is paying $50 million for the privilege, which is 500 percent more than the NFL's prior agreement with Twitter over streaming rights, and for the same number of games.Twitter got off to a fast start last year when nearly a quarter of a million viewers tuned into its first streamed NFL game featuring the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills. Sure, that was a drop in the bucket compared to the 15.4 million that watched the same game through CBS, but for a first shot on social media, the number of viewers...
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Twitter is making it a little more difficult to be an anonymous troll. The social media giant is getting rid of its default “egg” profile picture. This default has come to be associated on Twitter with harassment and abuse. According to a Twitter representative, “We’ve noticed patterns of behavior with accounts that are created only to harass others – often they don’t take the time to personalize their accounts. This has created an association between the default egg profile photo and negative behavior, which isn’t fair to people who are still new to Twitter and haven’t yet personalized their profile photo.”The “egg” picture was originally intended as a reference to Twitter users “hatching” their...
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Twitter has been on a mission over the last few months to curb cyber-bullying. Twitter users before were largely responsible for reporting accounts that they felt violated Twitter’s guidelines, but the social media giant is now taking on some of the responsibility for policing potentially abusive accounts. Twitter is intent upon identifying bad behavior, regardless of whether or not it has been reported. The social networking services plans to limit the functionality of accounts who violate its terms of service. If the account continues to be “abusive”, Twitter “will consider taking further action”. Many users have already experienced the punishment for their bad behavior. This past month, Twitter...
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Do you kiss your mama with that mouth? Twitter has implemented a new policy where it is temporarily limiting the reach of those who violate its abusive behavior policies. The new protocol comes at a time when Twitter is revising its abusive content policies. Affected users have been receiving emails stating, “We’ve detected some potentially abusive behavior from your account, so only your followers can see your activity on Twitter for the amount of time shown below”. The typical time limitation appears to be for about twelve hours. If a person tags someone in a tweet who does not follow them, the tagged person will not see the message. Users are not only being banned for using specific naughty...
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There are certain uncomfortable moments that trigger an awkward feeling in your belly. One of them is walking in on your parents when they're doing the horizontal mambo. While perhaps not quite on that level, it feels a little weird watching two wireless carriers go back and forth on Twitter in a feud over the erotic foreplay known as BDSM. At this point, we wish T-Mobile and Verizon would get a room already. It all started with a T-Mobile ad during the Super Bowl. The commercial is a spoof of 50 Shades of Grey featuring actress and comedian Kristen Schaal (from The Last Man On Earth and Bob's Burgers). She gets aroused while standing in front of several Verizon phones in chains while a man in...
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The FBI may have overstepped its bounds (again) and acted outside what was made legally permissible by a 2008 Justice Department memo when it asked Twitter to provide information about certain account holders. Twitter received the data requests by way of two national security letters (NSLs) that were served, one in 2015 and the other in 2016, which at the time were protected by gag orders preventing Twitter from notifying the affected account holders or publicly disclosing their existence. Those gag orders have been lifted and just as other tech companies have done in recent months—most notably Google and Yahoo—Twitter is making public the data requests in an effort to remain transparent. While...
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President Donald Trump turned in his much-used Android phone for something more secure (likely a modified Blackberry or iPhone handset), but in case it has not been made clear to this point, he has no intention of giving up Twitter. Trump is the first United States president to tap into social media to the extent that he does. Doing so may have helped him win the election, though some feel it also presents a security threat. One hacker in particular has a message for Trump, and that is to lock down his Twitter account with tighter security. The hacker goes by the moniker WauchulaGhost and claims he infiltrated 500 ISIS accounts on Twitter. After doing some poking around, WauchulaGhost determined...
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Like a massive army of Storm Troopers willing to follow devious commands, a pair of researchers from the University College London warn that a "large number of Twitter users are bots" that are ready to "contaminate the Twitter API stream." There are more than 350,000 in all, comprising what the researchers have named the Star Wars botnet. It has been dormant and "well hidden" since it was created in 2013. Juan Echeverria, a research student at UC London, and his supervisor and senior lecturer Shi Zhou outlined the threat in a research paper that is awaiting approval in a scientific journal. The have not present their findings to Twitter yet for that reason. Their main concern is not that the...
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